Fine Fools Community

Having Sexerati on Fleshbot yesterday and then Damn I’m Cute on there today has not been kind to the server. Actually my shitty programming hasn’t been kind to the server. This isn’t about growing up too fast or whether I should pay the writers of Fine Fools or not (they pay themselves right now with the income from their sites). This is about me trying to create a network on a Microsoft Access Database…Access 97 no less! I have made some minor changes which should help, but I can’t upgrade to Access 10 till this weekend so please bear with us. I have to wait for my mom to hand over my allowance.

To all Fine Fools writers: Feel free to egg Cowboy’s house this weekend to get back at me.

What do I even say about this site besides that it makes me very happy to be part of it. Cowboy broke the writer to the masses on Sunday and if you don’t know about Melissa Gira, don’t worry because in a couple of months I think you will. This site was all her idea and I admit to just being there along for the ride.

So is it a Fleshbot-clone? Well I think it’s too early to tell, but we can definitely say that it fits in the same category as Fleshbot and if it achieves the success of Fleshbot you definitely won’t hear us complaining. So far the content is little more “fuller” than Fleshbot and being written by a female I do believe will give it a more erotic twist. Something about women being more erotic than men…

Hopefully from the title you can garner that the site isn’t safe for work so don’t blame us if you get in trouble. So ummmm, yeah, here is Sexerati. Enjoy. I know I will.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Weekends are quiet around the Fine Fools Community. But I had a pretty busy weekend personally. Just a run down of what I was doing this weekend while I wasn’t supposed to be posting.

I commented on why some people comment and others dont. It doesn’t seem to be based on the amount of traffic in my opinion.

I wondered why Scrivs has stooped to talking about Britney and Federline. First Nick and Jessica and now this?

Then he goes and stands up for Chitika. While I seem to take a strong disliking to them.

In my boredom this weekend I considered making some candy and Chef Vault gave me some tips.

Instead I went to the movies. My girl Melody gave me some ideas as what to watch. I popped in Hidalgo instead of dealing with the crowds. I also watched a little bit of football.

My weeked wouldn’t have been complete without sex with a virgin while Beck played in the background and a little bit of webcam magic. Later in the evening I concluded the night by surfing through Damn I’m Cute’s new celeb gallery and hanging a cool new photo on the wall.

Good to see all you readers back from a nice weekend. Hope your week goes well.

I’m not one to miss crazes so when Derek Lakin came to me proposing that he write on Web 2.0 stuff I knew for sure I had to start a Web 2.0 site. Are you tired of seeing Web 2.0 in this entry well if so then go on over to the Web 2.0 blog and ignore everything Web 2.0.

Derek is a very smart guy and his entries over at Bill’s Baby have been making quite a splash in the developer community (more on that later) and I look forward to working with him on the Web 2.0 blog. Work with him you say? Yes indeed, Scrivs will be doing some writing on Web 2.0 and what it means for all of us because I like talking about stuff in which I really have no idea what I am talking about.

Should be fun.

Redd Omaha. Coolest name for an author is Fine Fools so far. Authors The Song Blog. Take a guess what the site is about? Anyways, the site like all the rest is in its beginning stages so we will give Redd sometime to get his feet wet and then we can start arguing who the best Hip-Hop artist of all-time is or the most influential.

Anyways, drop by and see what’s up because the site isn’t really just about music…

Haven’t done a case study on Fine Fools in a while so now is a good a time as any to see where things are going.

• Gardgy: 72,670/51/31
• Hollyshow: 123,067/23/20
• Work Boxers: 10,594/234/126
• Love Translated: 104,518/34/23
• Escape Blog: 46,377/91/44
• Bill’s Baby: 116,227/38/21
• Insert 25: 39,204/87/50
• Sports Four: 104,518/30/23
• Successful Blog: 7,124/392/169
• Damn I’m Cute: 64,064/54/34
• Proud White Trash: 130,346/19/19
• I Like Cameras: 25,566/175/69
• It’s Useless: 60,090/60/36
• Chef Vault: 69,738/41/32
• A Man’s View: 147,657/32/17
• Jack of All Blogs: 13,120/167/107

Two blogs have been put in detention (Songossip and Movable Phone) because they weren’t being updated enough and I don’t want to pollute this network with too many useless blogs. Having JOAB is more than I can handle anyways.

Obviously a lot of the sites need some work and what I am finding is that the sites that are the most successful are the ones that can combine original content with outside links. Without the outside links more promotion is needed in other ways. The outside links serve as their own form of promotion and seem to have people coming back. Also the sites where owners are run by just one writer seem to be doing better than the group blogs. I attribute this to the fact that a single writer can hold a single focus while group blogs have to do a better job of collaborating together, which means I have to do a better job of giving them the chances to do so.

Also Technorati ranking helps to give a small indication of traffic, but just because you are higher ranked doesn’t mean you are receiving more traffic. With the new designs popping up on sites over the coming weeks it will be interesting to see their effect on traffic.

So far I am still taking all of this as a learning experience. Liz and David have shown me more about properly running and promoting a blog than anybody else this year and the content that is coming out of some of the sites brings up some interesting options for those writers to make money in 2006.

I would like to wish all my writers and readers a Happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully the writers remember they aren’t supposed to write on holidays, but some will probably sneak something in anyways. Time for more fun tomorrow.

I am obsessed with the statistics of the blogosphere. I crawl Technorati and PubSub regularly and am always amazed to see the new sites creeping their way up the charts. One site that always sticks out though is Xiaxue’s site. Never heard of her? Well the site is run by Wendy Cheng and it isn’t about blogging, politics, business, Web 2.0 or anything else that you may think only top bloggers write about. The site is about her and that’s all her readers care about.

Now for a second (just for a second) let’s ignore how great looking she is and let’s focus on the pull this woman has on the web. As of this writing, according to Technorati, she has over 3,564 sites linking to her. Not links mind you, actual sites. That is unbelievable and places her at #31 on the Technorati 100 ahead of:

• Scoble
• Defamer
• Joel Spolsky
• Jeff Jarvis
• Joystiq
• Seth Godin
• Steve Rubel
• Signal vs. Noise

I know all these statistics, must be taken with a grain of salt, but they do provide a small glimpse of the web.

Things are definitely getting more and more interesting in Fine Fools land. Ridiculous.

Well you didn’t think that the Fine Fools writers or Mike Rundle would let me get away with keeping my bland template for all Fine Fools sites did you? Too see where we are going with the Network checkout Jack of All Blogs. A bit funky eh?

Now I can’t exactly tell you the reasoning behind the design, but let’s just say we wanted something different than the other networks that gave us a unique feel. We didn’t want any controversy like Creative Weblogging had with WIN. No sir, if you take our look (not the two colummns, the actual look) then there is simply no mistaking it. At least that’s what I asked for and what Rundle gave me is a design that is so different from his other stuff you can tell he was getting a bit anxious working under my iron grip.

For all Fine Fools writers, take notice, your sites will be sporting new designs as well. JOAB just got it first because we knew we could mess with that design because absolutely nobody likes to read his site . The templates will be the same, but new color schemes for each site will exist.

Just another chapter in trying to make us stand out from the rest of the crowd because we are a tad different. Can there be improvements? Of course and things will be ironed out over time, but when you have a Network with a personality such as Fine Fools it deserves to be dressed up in a design that share its personality.

Those wonderful f*ckers at Blogebrity have apparently learned how to use Technorati too well and are reporting our new sites before even we get a chance to. We don’t mind though since it’s not like we are keeping secrets or releasing something new. Just something different. Like sites with content you wouldn’t mind coming back to read.

Anyways, today is the official announcement of Hollyshow, written by Melody Ralls who describes the site as being done by “a semi-psychotic film fanatic who really needs to get out more.” Well good thing the Writing Standards strictly prohibits Fine Fools writers from writing on the weekends (although more and more are starting to break that rule, tsk tsk).

Currently the site is being loaded with a ton of movie reviews and over time I can see new content and subjects being added, but let Melody get her feet wet and go over to disagree with her ratings. I mean only giving Constantine 3 stars?! Come on. I guess you don’t have to agree with the writer to still like the site .